LARGE EDDY SIMULATION OF ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY LAYER FLOWS AND APPLICATION TO POLLEN DISPERSAL

Marcelo Chamecki
PhD Thesis, The Johns Hopkins University
August 2008
Baltimore MD

ABSTRACT: This work presents a framework to simulate pollen disperal by wind based on Large Eddy Simulation. Important phenomena such as pollen emission by plants and ground deposition are modeed through the boundary condition. An expression for the vertical equilibrium concentration profile of pollen particles, including the effect of the canopy on the eddy diffusivity as well as corrections for atmospheric stability, is proposed for this purpose. This expression is validated against measurements of vertical concentration profiles of corn pollen above a corn field. The numerical discretization of the evolution equations follows a new approach in which different discretization schemes are used for the velocity and concentration fields. A new interpolation scheme is proposed to couple the two discretizations. The numerical model is validated against previously published experiments of point-source releases of glass beads and pollen grains in the atmospheric boundary layer. The numerical model is used together with experimental data of pollen emission and downwind deposition from a natural field obtained near Washington DC in the summer of 2006. The combined analysis of experimental and numerical data allows to elucidate the emission, transport, and deposition processes in considerable detail. In particular, the relative fractions of pollen deposited inside the source field and airborne at the edge of the field can be quantified. Investigations based on experimental data and direct numerical simulation of the effects of the local structure of the flow on subgrid scale models for simulations of the atmospheric boundary layer are also presented.

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